Face to Face
by Thoughtful Constellations
Summary: The first time Natasha meets Kate Bishop, Kate Bishop is dripping wet with one of Natasha's towels wrapped around her, and she's walking out of Clint and Natasha's bathroom.


**If you've read _Girl, Compromised _and are currently reading _What Partners Do_, this oneshot would come shortly after where _What Partners Do _is going to end. If you haven't read either of those, this works as a standalone piece, too.**

**Let me know what you think!**

**Enjoy! =)**

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><p>The first time Natasha meets Kate Bishop, Kate Bishop is dripping wet with one of Natasha's towels wrapped around her, and she's walking out of Clint and Natasha's bathroom.<p>

"Clint?" Natasha says, her voice steady and calm. Her green eyes scan over the strange young girl in front of her. "Would you care to explain this?"

Clint peeks his head into the bedroom, and he freezes as soon as he sees freshly showered Kate Bishop, who looks like she's about to die from mortification. Natasha, on the other hand, looks cool as a cucumber; she doesn't look pissed, she doesn't look annoyed, and she doesn't look accusing. She's simply curious, her eyes taking in the sigh of Kate in one of her towels.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Shit. This isn't what it looks like. This is Kate—Kate Bishop. She's my—my protégé. You remember, right? I've told you all about Kate," he protests. He's doing that thing where his words all run together because he's feeling awkward and slightly nervous, and he knows that it doesn't escape Natasha's notice. Natasha doesn't show any sign of hostility on her face—which is good—but she's not showing any softness—which isn't all that good—either.

"We're not sleeping together," Kate blurts out as she wraps her towel around her even more tightly in blind panic. "I mean, for one, Clint's _way _too old, and two, I totally respect his relationship with you, so even if I had a creepy thing for older men, I would never disrespect anything that you two have. Like, you guys have been together forever, and I wouldn't even think about it."

Natasha can see that the girl is quietly dying on the inside, and she feels a pang of sympathy towards her. She knows that the junior agents at SHIELD find her intimidating, but she's heard a lot about the fearless, unapologetic Kate Bishop. "Ok."

Her voice is just as steady and calm as ever, and she turns her eyes back to Clint to silently let him know that she accepts it. Relief washes over his face, and he releases the breath he's been unconsciously holding this entire time. Natasha glances again at Kate, and he watches how she regards the young archer with an expression that isn't trusting, but it's also not _un_trusting, and he knows that that's a good thing.

"I have a change of clothes over—over here. I'm going to…" Kate helplessly stammers around her words before she snatches a duffel bag off the ground and retreats back into the bathroom. As soon as the door is shut, Natasha allows a smile to spread across her face. She turns to face Clint.

"You didn't tell me she was here!" she whispers loudly at him. "You know I've been wanting to meet her for a while."

"I forgot she was here!" Clint whispers back at her. "She takes really long showers, and I thought she'd be done by the time I picked you up from HQ."

"Which you shouldn't even have done, by the way," Natasha points out with lifted eyebrows. Her eyes flick down to the swollen purple spot starting to spread out across his cheekbone. "I was more than capable of driving myself home."

"I know, but you don't have to," Clint reminds her. He glances towards the bathroom. "We just finished up a minor mission."

"Which is why you should've just stayed home to rest," Natasha replies as she nods towards the bruise on his cheek that he seems to think she won't notice if he doesn't mention it. "I think I scared her."

"You're the Black Widow. Of course you scared her. You scare everyone," Clint says with a quiet snort so that Kate doesn't hear him talking about her through the door. "But you don't scare me."

He slips his arms around her waist and pulls her in close to his body before she can protest. Rolling her eyes, she pushes back against his arms with purposefully weak effort; the both of them know that if she really wants to get away from him, she can do it. However, she doesn't actually want to be apart from him any longer than she has to be—she's already spent three weeks supervising some stupid stuff she would have been perfectly ok to _not_ supervise—so she doesn't fight back. Instead, she lets him pull her into him, and she even wraps her arms back around his waist in a moment of rare tenderness.

"I don't scare you? Well, that's disappointing," she drily remarks.

"Nope. Not a single bit." Clint lowers his mouth to kiss her on the lips, but he changes course last second and kisses her on the cheek instead. She groans, and he laughs as he pulls away. As he pulls back, he looks down at her face, his blue eyes scanning over her features. "You knew exactly who Kate was, didn't you?"

"Of course I did. As soon as you told me you'd partnered up with her, I pulled up every bit of information on her that I could possibly find," Natasha answers, smirking up at him. "I knew exactly what she looked like before I ever saw her."

"Creep."

"I prefer the term professional spy."

"Did you really think I'd cheat on you with a 10 year old?"

"_God, _Barton, please don't ever say that again because that's disgusting. She's 20, her birthday is March 30, so that means she's an Aries. But no. I never once thought you were cheating on me with her. I just wanted to see you squirm." Natasha smiles as he starts to smile but winces because of the pain in his cheek. She lifts a hand and runs her fingers gently over it, her eyes thoughtful.

Before she can say anything, however, the bathroom door opens, and Kate Bishop steps out, looking slightly more pulled together, even though her dark, dark hair is still very wet and her face is still very tense. She pauses as she sees Natasha and Clint standing there with their arms around each other, her blue eyes large. "Oh. Hi."

"Hey." Clint lowers one arm away from Natasha so that he's standing there with his arm draped across her shoulders. "So. Kate, this is Natasha. Natasha, this is Kate."

"I've heard a lot about you," Kate says quickly. Her eyes dart down to Natasha's hand as if she's unsure whether or not she should initiate a handshake with the redheaded spy. When her eyes look back up to meet Natasha's, she seems to have decided not to risk it. "From Clint and everyone else."

"I've heard a lot about you, too," Natasha smoothly replies. "I hear you're a damn good archer."

Finally, a smile that isn't 100% forced creeps across Kate's mouth, and her shoulders visibly lower as some of the tension leaks away. "Yeah. I'm really good."

And then Natasha smiles, a genuine Natasha Romanoff smile that she usually saves just for Clint. "Cool."

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><p>By the time Kate grabs the rest of her things and scurries out the door of Clint and Natasha's apartment, she's less flustered. She's not acting like her usual self, but she's acting a little bit more like herself. The front door shuts behind her, and it's just Natasha and Clint together again with their cat and their damn dog. Natasha turns to Clint, who's brewing a new pot of coffee in the kitchen.<p>

"I like her," she says. And she means it. She doesn't like very many people right off the bat, but she's heard a lot about Kate Bishop, and she can tell that underneath the awkwardness the girl had been feeling, she has her shit together. Natasha likes people who have their shit together.

"You do?" Clint glances up with a pleased smile playing around the edges of her mouth.

"Yeah," Natasha replies. "She looks like she doesn't put up with shit."

"She doesn't," Clint admits. "She's pretty awesome."

"Good." Natasha means it. She wants Clint to have a good influence in his life, and even if that influence is over 10 years younger than he is, she thinks he needs it. Sometimes she worries about him whenever she's not there with him. Realistically, she knows he's perfectly ok to look out for himself. He's a grown man who's proven himself to be capable more than once, but still. It wouldn't be called love if she didn't worry about him every second she wasn't with him. And in this line of work that they were both in, her worry can't exactly be considered unreasonable. So knowing that Kate Bishop is keeping Clint alive while Natasha's gone is a bit of a comfort. "She's rich, right?"

"Yeah. Her dad owns—"

"Bishop Publishing. I know," Natasha finishes for him, smiling as he gives her a bored look.

"Why'd you ask if you already knew the answer?" he asks. "God, you ruin all of my fun."

"I ruin _all _of your fun?" Natasha lifts her eyebrows, and she gives him a suggestive look. "I was going to suggest that we make up for some lost time in the bedroom, but I guess if I ruin _all _of yo—"

She never gets to finish her sentence. In record time, Clint has her lifted up over his shoulder fireman style as he walks to the bedroom. "I take that back."

"I'd hope so," Natasha says from her upside down position. She usually doesn't let Clint pick her up, but today, she doesn't mind. She lets him sling her over his shoulder because it's all fun and games, and she loves him, and she's just happy to be back home with him.

So when he tosses her onto the bed and climbs on top of her, his mouth fusing to hers, she forgets about Kate Bishop, Clint's nasty bruise, and how much she's missed him. She loses herself in the feeling of being home, and she forgets about everything.


End file.
